LONG BLOG

Welcome to another lovely blog from ThatDocktorGirl. Stay tuned for episode 9 of The Low(er) Tier Podcast dropping tomorrow.

Hello again *salute* ok so as most of you should damn well know, The Evil Within has been announced!!! With the weirdest, most abstract, ridiculously vague live-action trailer EVER! It looks so awesome!

And what grabbed me was how where it’s set looks like a lunatic asylum (well it does to me. I mean that kinda game and the vibe it gives off BEGS for an asylum level, don’t ya think?) I love asylums. Set anything in a loony-bin and I’m bound to love it 35% more than if it were in any other setting.

There’s something about ‘craziness’, about the human mind at it’s most twisted and depraved, pushed that little bit further than we’re really set-up to go at, that just gets people by the balls and makes them pay attention that little bit more.

Take Far Cry 3; would people have paid as much attention as they did if Vaas wasn’t the front-runner of the advertising campaign? Like if it was the Doctor or the tribal lady whose name I never remember - it just wouldn‘t have had the same appeal. Nothing yanks your attention-span more than a delightfully insane individual doing their thing.

I love these ‘insane’ characters and their dead yet wild eyes, and the iconic things they say (“Have I ever told you the definition of insanity?” “Don’t ask questions you already know the answer to - it’s rude” “Fly little moth, fly!”) and some of them can creep you to the bone!!

I think one of the greatest insanity-type games is Alice: Madness Returns. For starters, I have always loved Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass anyway. But that game - MY GAWD! It’s so pretty, and lush and then ever so subtly gets weirder and darker and more twisted as the game goes on and as dear Alice’s mind falls apart evermore… It’s wonderful and so artistic the way it’s done, it’s amazing.

Now what I’m most excited about with The Evil Within is that it’s going to be a return (hopefully!! I won’t believe the press release until I see the game in action!) of true survival horror!

I’m terrible with horror games, I am so jumpy and on edge, but I more than happily put myself through it over and over. Following on from my Silent Hill blog, I picked up the HD Collection, and here’s what I mean when I’m not good with scary things - I’ve not got very far… Now when I say that, I mean really, I am not far at all. I have just reached the apartments. Seriously, that is where I stopped.

Watching walkthroughs that people have done of SH2 to get to that part is like 15 to 20 mins. But me? An hour and a half baby!! You really get your moneys worth and play time out of horror games, believe me…

So yeah. Last time I played went like this;

“I’m into the apartment block now… Not so bad, bit dark, but I’ll cope, not getting any static or anything, awesome… *goes up the stairs… hears weird noise* what was that?… *reaches 2nd floor landing… weird noise gets weirder and more horrible* what is that noise? WHAT IS THAT NOISE?!?!?! I’M NOT LIKING THIS!!!! NO NO NO!!!! *returns to Xbox dashboard*”

Really not good with it at all… I’ll get further eventually… Just don’t rush me on it… I’ve watched Youtube walkthroughs of it, I know what I’m in for now… I’m not gonna look forward to handling it…

I love it though, don’t get me wrong. Nothing makes a good night for me than scaring myself silly to the point where I have to put every single light in my house on. But with more modern games, it’s not really doing it for me anymore.

‘Modern’ horror games have just lost their gristly-ness, their gut-wrenching capabilities… I mean when Alma first physically attacks you in F.E.A.R 2 I lost my mind; every single corridor that was badly lit in some way in Dead Space I was dangerously close to having a heart attack; even Bioshock Infinite and that last fucking Boy of Silence I literally screamed my throat hoarse at (see, doesn’t even need to be a part of the horror genre and I’ll be scared of something in it).

Older games though with their not-spot-on graphics, not polished sound-effects, lighting issues so it’s either normal or pitch black, that real rawness and sketchiness to it added to the experience of being scared! It’s just constant! Cuz it was so weird looking anyway! (In comparison to now’s super glossy products.)

We’re so easy to desensitise now though because so many games that could be so much better than they are seem to be following the FPS route, or have a sense of military service to them; you’re playing as a character that straight off the bat has some form for gun on them. That takes so much tension out of things! Actually, at any point in any horror game, it becomes less scary when your character has a firearm and more than 2 clips of ammo. No?

So in The Evil Within yes, you play as a detective, but seeing how it’s being said that it’s returning to good old fashioned ways of proper survival horror - I do not want to see a gun until the last boss battle!!! Ok? I want to be crying, shaking and pulling my hair out with fear as I control this little Detective Sebastian fella around, getting him to beat some horrifying creation that I’m not even sure is gonna die with a fucking skeleton pelvis or something… Make it really gritty is what I’m trying to say, you know. Give us a game we’re gonna be terrified to hit Start on, but so scared once we get going that we can’t turn it off. That’s not too much to ask at all.

Right, so that’s just what I want personally; it’d be awesome to hear what people who are less easy to scare (so, anyone really…) has to say about what they want in a horror game; or reminisce about good ones gone by - I’ve got a ridiculous backlog to get through, but there’s always room for more on my gaming list if you wanna drop any suggestions below.

Three day old threads are only visible to verified humans - this helps our small community management team stay on top of spam

Sorry for the extra step!

About LowerTierPodcastone of us since 2:18 PM on 10.13.2012

Hi!

We are The Low(er) Tier team. Would you like to see our baseball? It's nice. We are comprised of:
Jaimie/MrCharleeB, Jesse/SayWord, Latrell /Used_ta_be and Mike/PhilKenSebben for the podcast and all of us contributing for the articles/blogs. Our goal is to make you laugh, through offensive comedy and the degradation of stupid people.

Our shows will focus on current news, guests, contests, etc. The blogs will focus on whatever we want 'em too.